Moleskine Acquired by a French Company
We interrupt this program:) ...
"The investment fund, Société
générale
Le Figaro ("Roughly" translated by Carol Gillott. Merci!)
Google Translation
Babel Fish
Modo & Modo Sale Updates
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Moleskine Users Group @ LiveJournal
Moleskinerie @ FLICKR
Related link:
"Moleskine: How to revive a brand"
By Ben McConnell
has repurchased the small notebooks of an Italian company.
The transfers of companies breathes an aroma of nostalgia (?). Moleskine, celebrated maker of small travel notebooks is changing hands. For 60,000,000 euros, the private fund, Société générale repurchased this once very French brand. In 1998, Milanese company Modo & Modo restarted it again, to the great pleasure of Moleskine's fans.
This transfer with a French investor, the small PME returns it to the French "fold" with the desire to build its future while retaining it's past traditions. (?)
Moleskine has been the travel companion of great adventurers, the confidant of the great writers, and the witness to great painter's anguish. From Van Gogh to Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway, a plethora of the last century's artists adopted Moleskine's notebooks for travel, sketching or notetaking.
Pablo Picasso had a whole collection of them. One, the sketchpad n° 53, a notebook of 9 centimetres over 13,5 dated June/September 1912 can be seen at the Picasso Museum in Paris. Oscar Wilde never traveled by train without his notebook: "It"s always necessary to have something sensational to read", he said. Ernest Hemingway was accustomed to sitting at table with thela Closerie des Lilas in his "favorite angle": "I'd order a café-crème and spend long afternoons writing in my note book."
Most saddened was Bruce Chatwin
At the time, Moleskine was produced in an artisanal manner by a small family paper mill in Tours. Amateurs appreciated the rigid paperboard covered in black or brown fabric, the elastic band which held it closed and the mitre which made it possible to open it without the pages flying away. In 1986, the papermill owner died and production ceased.
Most saddened was Bruce Chatwin. Collector, journalist, novelist and travel writer on Patagonie and the Australian Aboriginals, was known to say: "To lose my passport is the last of my concern. To mislay my note book would be acatastrophic." Chatwin told its fright when its paper maker, installed street of the Old-Comedy in Paris, taught him laconically that "Moleskine truth is not any more". It sought of it a hundred for one of its tours.
The small Milanese company, Modo and Modo, started production again in 1998 by depositing the mark no one had taken bothered to patent. Success came quickly. Notebooks, scetch books, books lined, squared, in both small and large sizes are sold today to 4,5 million specimens per annum in some thirty country. JNF Productions, created in 1977 by Jean-Christmas Flammarion, secured the exclusive rights of distribution for France.
For Modo and Modo, Moleskine is it's only product, makes approximately 70 million euros in sales turnover. Its owners, Mario Baruzzi and Francesco Franceschi, did not comment yesterday."
The transfers of companies breathes an aroma of nostalgia (?). Moleskine, celebrated maker of small travel notebooks is changing hands. For 60,000,000 euros, the private fund, Société générale repurchased this once very French brand. In 1998, Milanese company Modo & Modo restarted it again, to the great pleasure of Moleskine's fans.
This transfer with a French investor, the small PME returns it to the French "fold" with the desire to build its future while retaining it's past traditions. (?)
Moleskine has been the travel companion of great adventurers, the confidant of the great writers, and the witness to great painter's anguish. From Van Gogh to Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway, a plethora of the last century's artists adopted Moleskine's notebooks for travel, sketching or notetaking.
Pablo Picasso had a whole collection of them. One, the sketchpad n° 53, a notebook of 9 centimetres over 13,5 dated June/September 1912 can be seen at the Picasso Museum in Paris. Oscar Wilde never traveled by train without his notebook: "It"s always necessary to have something sensational to read", he said. Ernest Hemingway was accustomed to sitting at table with thela Closerie des Lilas in his "favorite angle": "I'd order a café-crème and spend long afternoons writing in my note book."
Most saddened was Bruce Chatwin
At the time, Moleskine was produced in an artisanal manner by a small family paper mill in Tours. Amateurs appreciated the rigid paperboard covered in black or brown fabric, the elastic band which held it closed and the mitre which made it possible to open it without the pages flying away. In 1986, the papermill owner died and production ceased.
Most saddened was Bruce Chatwin. Collector, journalist, novelist and travel writer on Patagonie and the Australian Aboriginals, was known to say: "To lose my passport is the last of my concern. To mislay my note book would be acatastrophic." Chatwin told its fright when its paper maker, installed street of the Old-Comedy in Paris, taught him laconically that "Moleskine truth is not any more". It sought of it a hundred for one of its tours.
The small Milanese company, Modo and Modo, started production again in 1998 by depositing the mark no one had taken bothered to patent. Success came quickly. Notebooks, scetch books, books lined, squared, in both small and large sizes are sold today to 4,5 million specimens per annum in some thirty country. JNF Productions, created in 1977 by Jean-Christmas Flammarion, secured the exclusive rights of distribution for France.
For Modo and Modo, Moleskine is it's only product, makes approximately 70 million euros in sales turnover. Its owners, Mario Baruzzi and Francesco Franceschi, did not comment yesterday."
Le Figaro ("Roughly" translated by Carol Gillott. Merci!)
Google Translation
Babel Fish
Modo & Modo Sale Updates
Reactions:
Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups
Moleskine Users Group @ LiveJournal
Moleskinerie @ FLICKR
Related link:
"Moleskine: How to revive a brand"
By Ben McConnell
Cross-posted at
Notebookism.com, our new partner site.
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Google translation
“Funds of investment of the general Company repurchases the small notebooks at an Italian company. IT IS transfers of companies which exhale a perfume of nostalgia. Moleskine, celebrates manufacturer of small notebooks of voyage, changes hand. For 60 million euros, funds private of the general Company comes to repurchase this so French mark and which however was not it any more. In 1998, the Milanese company Modo & Modo had started again it, for the greatest pleasure of the amateurs. With this transfer with a financial investor of French extraction, small SME returns a little to the “fold” with the same desire for building its future by also exploiting its past. Moleskine was the travelling companion of the large adventurers, the confidant of the great writers, the witness of the anguishes of the great painters. Of Van Gogh with Picasso while passing through Matisse and Hemingway, plethora of artists of last century adopted Moleskine like notebook of voyage, sketch or notes…
Posted by: JP | August 05, 2006 at 05:04 PM
Suggestion for new owner:
Return *all* production to Europe.
Posted by: Joy | August 06, 2006 at 11:01 AM
Apparently the editors at Le Figaro think that reading the bogus history of the Moleskine inserted in the notebook pocket counts as fact checking.
Posted by: Bill the Editor | August 06, 2006 at 10:56 PM